TUTORIAL: LibreELEC a quick installation guide for PC

LibreELEC for PC is a good way to recover an old PC with few resources to use it as a multimedia player or for a mini PC dedicated exclusively to using KODI. It is possible to run this OS even with 1GB of RAM, something only available to few systems, on the other hand the video performance will depend on the hardware acceleration that the processor has, if it is a very old model the modern codecs can do frameskips irremediably. Let’s see in the following Installation Guide of LibreELEC on PC how we can test or install this system on our computer.

LibreELEC is compatible with many of the recommended on our selection of the Best mini PC Models

What is LibreELEC?

As the motto of this distribution says, “Just enough OS for KODI” with this philosophy we have many advantages with regard to using KODI running on a complete operating system, but also some inconvenience associated with this option. With enough knowledge we can install a DualOS system, both LibreELEC and another operating system, as we would with any Linux distribution, at the end of this article you have a small guide of the process.

Pros : – The system only consumes 100 Mb of RAM – KODI fits perfectly to our device’s hardware – We have automatic refresh change to avoid the Judder effect

Cons : – We can not run heavy desktop applications

Installing LibreELEC

We have two ways to use LibreELEC in our computers:

Executing it from a USB memory and respecting the Android system

Installing it in our disk drive, erasing the current system or doing Dual boot.

As is logical, it is always advisable to test the system with the first option and then with some simple steps we can try to install it in the internal disk drive of the PC where it will go faster than in a USB drive.

Is my PC compatible with LibreELEC?

The vast majority of computers are compatible with LibreELEC, we can boot both with the UEFI boot system and the old Legacy. At the level of processors we can start it in Intel Core, Celeron, Pentium or Atom, also in AMD processors and in their APU’s.

In the most modern processors we will need to use the latest version of LibreELEC and check the compatibility in their support forums if it does not work perfectly when we try it.

Requirements for the installation

To start using the LibreELEC system on PC we just need to download the installation program and a USB drive that will be used to boot it from it or install it on our computer.

Creation of the LibreELEC boot drive

Once we have the installation program we can create the USB drive to boot this system executing it. It is advisable to use the fastest possible USB drive if we plan to use this system from it without installing it in our disk drive.

Select the AMD / Intel / NVidia version and the latest version of LibreELEC

Click on Download

Select the USB drive

Click on Write

Boot LibreELEC in our PC

To boot LibreELEC we must enter the BIOS and select the USB boot drive or press the appropriate key to show us the boot unit selection menu, we may have to consult our motherboard manual. There are two ways to boot LibreELEC, we have to write one of the two in the boot system:

live : the system starts up from the USB memory

run : start the installation of LibreELEC in the system (if we have Windows 10 read the last point of the guide)

Install KODI add-ons in LibreELEC

The process of installing add-ons is exactly the same as in any other system with KODI, through the public repositories or by downloading the add-on in particular and installing it manually.

ATTENTION: Whenever you download an add-on for LibreELEC you have to download the x86 or x64 version, normally our PC will always be x64 although in the case of the Atom processors it is possible that they only work in x86

With a bootable USB flash drive with the GParted Live application, we resize the last LibreELEC partition leaving it alone in 16 GB (that’s enough) and leaving the rest of the disk free for Windows. Format the new partition in NTFS and call it Windows. Apply changes and turn off the system.

Introduce the USB memory to install Windows 10 and perform the installation on the new partition.

Start Windows 10 and install EasyBCD to create the Dual Boot menu, add LibreELEC from the “Add new Entry” menu, from the “Edit Boot Menu” menu activate the two systems and click on “Save configuration”

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